GALVESTON — Texas' environmental agency has reached an agreement with a Rice University oceanographer and his editors to publish a scientific article the agency had earlier rejected because of references to climate change, human impact on the environment and sea-level rise.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the editors have negotiated an agreement that will allow the publication of an article on sea-level rise in Galveston Bay by John Anderson, Maurice Ewing professor of oceanography, said Jim Lester, an editor at the Houston Advanced Research Center. The article is the summation of a 10-year, peer-reviewed study published in the Geological Society of America.
"We arrived at a compromise, and the compromises were sufficient to make John Anderson agree that his name would be on the chapter," Lester said Wednesday.
Lester said the article would be sent to the printer Friday. He declined to discuss the changes that were made, citing a confidentiality agreement with TCEQ.
The TCEQ issued a one-paragraph statement saying, in part, "We are pleased that the project can move forward and this scientific report can add to the body of knowledge on this unique and precious part of Texas."
Anderson also issued a statement: "I am pleased to learn about negotiations with HARC to publish the version of the chapter that I approved. My research found that the rising sea levels in Galveston Bay are due to climate changes that are caused in part by humans. It is important that people have access to my complete scientific findings."
Censorship criticized
The censorship of Anderson's article was widely reported, resulting in public criticism that included letters from state legislators. San Antonio science teacher Mobi Warren began an online petition, urging the TCEQ to restore Anderson's article, that had 11,000 signatures as of Wednesday.
"I would like to say it was part of a widespread public outcry against the censorship of science," said, Warren, 58. "I'm glad science has won out."
Lester and editor Lisa Gonzalez were working under a HARC contract reached two years ago with TCEQ to publish the collection of 10 articles, each a chapter, written for State of the Bay, a periodical publication of the Galveston Bay Estuary Program. The editors asked Anderson to write a chapter on sea-level rise and received it last summer.
Anderson and the editors refused to have their names associated with the article in October after seeing TCEQ's final censored version of the article. Then the TCEQ refuses to allow it to be published.
Among the censored items were any mention of sea-level rise and references to human-caused change, such as human activity causing wetlands destruction.
"I don't think there is any question but that their motive is to tone this thing down as it relates to global (climate) change," Anderson said at the time. "It's not about science. It's all about politics."
The TCEQ gave no justification for the changes.
Lester said he and Gonzalez met with TCEQ officials in Austin on Nov. 28. Both sides had attorneys involved in the negotiations. Agreement was reached several weeks later.
'A lot of support'
Asked what he learned from the experience, Lester said, "It struck me that there was a lot of support for taking the scientific facts and the latest interpretation of those facts and making use of them in public policy."
Lester said he and Anderson agreed that they could have reached an compromise before their disagreement with TCEQ became public if agency officials had been open to negotiations. "We don't think we were asking too much to use the science as it's understood in the scientific literature," he said.
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